Hindutva activist Vaibhav Raut released from jail: grand welcome in Nalasopara with DJ music.

Maharashtra: Hindutva activist Vaibhav Raut released from Arthur Road jail, gets warm welcome from supporters in Nalasopara, Mumbai.

Sudhindra Palekar | HENB | Mumbai | Oct 13, 2023:: Vaibhav Raut, a member of Sanatana Sanstha, a Hindutva organization, has been released from jail and his Hindutva supporters have given him a grand welcome in Nalasopara.

A video of saffron-clad men and women dancing to DJ tunes while welcoming Vaibhav has gone viral on social media.

A 44-year-old Hindutva activist Vaibhav Raut, who was imprisoned in Arthur Road jail in connection with Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act for allegedly plotting to bomb Sunburn music festival in Pune in 2017, walked out of jail after five years and received a grand welcome by his supporters in Nalasopara on Thursday night. Raut is also an active member of a member of the Hindu Govansh Raksha Samiti.

After his arrest in August 2018, the cops had stumbled upon the secret room inside Raut’s house. The ATS team had confiscated a significant amount of arms, including country made pistols, crude bombs, one laptop, two CPUs, four airguns, 20 boxes of airgun bullets, two notebooks, one diary, one mobile phone, three SIM cards and two other papers etc.

However, the Bombay High Court recently granted him bail  noting that he has been in jail for over five years and the trial in the case is not likely to conclude soon. Out of 417 witnesses,  only four have been examined so far.

Actually, Advocates Sana Raees Khan and Aniket Pardeshi for Raut argued that the appellant was in custody for more than five years and with no prospect of the trial against him concluding in the near future. Khan argued that the contents in the alleged diary recovered from a garage having the appellant’s handwriting could not be corroborated by any witness. However, the ATS denied the claim.

The court accepted Khan’s submissions that the house from where eight crude bombs were recovered did not stand in his name but in his father’s name and that the godown from which 12 crude bombs were recovered was in the name of Om Sai Developers and there was no document to show the godown was purchased by Raut.

A division bench of Justice Revati Mohite-Dere and Justice Gauri V Godse passed an order on September 20 in Raut’s criminal appeal against the trial court order; a copy of the same was made available on Friday (Oct 6, 2023).

Raut has been asked not to leave Mumbai and Vasai-Virar area in Palghar district without permission of the trial court.

As per reports, some other co-accused in the same ‘2018 Nalasopara Arms Haul’ case are still languishing in the jail.

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__Inputs from Mid day (DiwakarSharma).